I was born on a farm in a heavy timbered country in Cambria
County, Pennsylvania, January 28th, 1853, near the city of Ebensburg,
almost on the summit of the Allegheny Mountains. The fourth son
and child of John and Elizabeth [Brallier] Gillin.

My father did not have a native country. He was born on the
high seas, when his parents were coming from Ireland to America.
The sail ship on which they came was wrecked by a terrific windstorm.
All of the sails and top riggings were blown off and the vessel
floated for weeks before they had it so that they could continue
on the voyage. [Note: John was the 2nd son, 4th child of John
and Frances Smith Gillin; they had three more sons after settling
in Cambria County - Alexander, 1827; William, 1828; and Thomas,
1833. Of the three, only William grew to adulthood and married.]

Father grew up to be quite a handyman with mechanic tools.
He was what we would term nowadays a Jack-of-all-trades."
He did carpenter work, mason work, plastering, painting, and any
other kind of work in the construction of buildings.

He purchased a piece of Timberland adjoining his father's farm
before he was married. Here he erected a frame dwelling, doing
all of the work himself, working all of the lumber out of the
rough used in its construction, as there were not any planing
mills at that time to prepare the lumber as there is today. He
had his house completed and a few acres cleared to cultivate when
he was married to Elizabeth Brallier [oldest daughter of Emanuel
& Mary Leidy Brallier also of Blacklick Twp.] in September
1846. To their union were born ten children: [I'll add both given
names; A.S. gives only first names.] Samuel Brallier, Robert J.,
John Emanuel, Mary Cordelia, Mesach, Martha Matilda, William Shadrach
[whom they apparently called Shadrach, as that's the name A.S.
gave], Frances Jane, and Charles Henry.

After the boys reached the age of about seven years, they were
put to doing light work, and as they grew older, heavier work.
After I reached the "starting point" to work, we four
oldest boys had plenty to do as long as we lived on that farm.
The surface of the land was very stony, and the stones had to
be picked up and hauled off after each crop had been taken off
the land, as every time it was plowed brought to light a new "crop"
[of rocks], and that had to be kept up for years. This was the
four oldest boys' job. We were designated as "the big boys"
and "the little boys." Sam and Bob (or Rob?) were the
big boys, and John and I were the little boys.

We were given a yoke of oxen hitched to a Yankee Jumper on
which the rocks were put on to be hauled off of the land. Our
instructions from father were for the large boys to pick up the
large stones and the small boys pick up the small stones. We had
many disputes over what was a large stone or a small one and discussed
the matter quite often very (valiantly?), spending more time at
that than it took to load them on the Yankee Jumper.

The first job in the Spring was making maple sugar and syrup.
There were about 500 Sugar trees, as we called them on a ridge
on the farm, which was called "the sugar camp." This
land was not cleared for cultivation. It was quite a job to prepare
it so that it could be worked successfully. It took years to do
it.

When it was started, the trees in the center of it were tapped,
which was in the center of the group of the trees, where was the
boiling down of the sugar water. A long pole was placed on crotches
made of small trees driven into the ground and from four to six
iron kettles were hung on this pole, each one holding about 50
gallons each. When the "boiling-down" process was started,
sugar water was put into all of the kettles; after it was about
half "boiled down," what was in Kettle #2 was dipped
into Kettle #1, and that was repeated until we got to the end
of the string of kettles. (This sentence was reworked without
distorting the meaning.] When the last one was emptied, it was
filled with fresh sugar water. That process was kept up until
what was in Kettle #1 was "boiled down" so that it could
be stirred as you stir fudge, until it became granulated as is
brown sugar. [What he calls "sugar water" is actually
"maple sap"]

When the camp was started, only a part of the trees were tapped;
those nearest around the "boiling-down" place, and the
sugar water was carried to it by hand, but each year the camp
was expanded, and in time, the trees that were tapped became quite
a distance from the "boiling-down" place, making it
too much of a job to carry the sugar water in by hand. Then roads
were cut out through the camp and the water [sap] was hauled in
by a yoke of oxen hitched to the Yankee Jumper, a kind of sled
[like a "skid" today] that we used to haul the stones
off of the cultivated land; upon this sled we placed barrels of
water [sap] to haul it in to the "boiling camp." But
the water was carried by hand and put into the barrels.

At first, the receptacles used to catch the water [sap] as
it dropped from the trees were made from cucumber trees - trees
about 15" in diameter were used. They were cut into blocks
of about 30" long, which were split in the middle, each half
made into a trough - the inner part chopped out, leaving the shell.
These troughs were placed close to the trees, so that when the
[sap] came from the spiles [small trough, driven into holes that
were made with an auger) would drop into them.

The spiles were made of sumac, which has a pity center like
elder. The pith was burned out of the center with a red-hot wire.
This kind of wood was selected because it did not ["chec"?]
and split as most wood does. After the "camp" was closed,
these troughs were turned upside down and placed on wood chunks
so they would not rot.

Next to the last year we were on the farm [1863], Father disposed
of the troughs because much of the [sap] was being spilled when
emptying it into pails to be carried away, and it took considerable
time to transfer it. He purchased wooden pails to use instead
of the troughs. With the pails, all he had to do was take the
one that had the [sap] in it and put an empty one in its place.[Sap]
was gathered twice a day when the main run of sap was on. The
vessels would not hold a twenty-four-hour run. In the morning
when we had all of the sap gathered, we boys had to carry in wood
and prepare it so that it could be used to keep up the fire under
the kettles; the fire was between two long logs, one laid along
each side of the kettles. It was kept up day and night. Most of
the time, it required two to look after it.

Our next job was picking up the stones and hauling them off
the ground to be put into crop. That done, we little boys were
each given a mallet (something like a croquet mallet) with instructions
to go over the meadows and pastures where stock had ranged during
the fall and winter, and break up and scatter all of the droppings
that they had left. Sometimes when our work was inspected, it
was not satisfactory, and we would have to go over it again. These
droppings [manure], if not scattered, would interfere with the
cutting of the grass, all of which was done with a scythe, leaving
the mown grass in quite thick rows. It was the little boys' job
to scatter these rows evenly over the ground so that it
would dry out quickly. When dried out thoroughly, it was raked
into winrows by a hand rake.

Father always kept a flock of sheep and raised from one to
two acres of flax. The wool from the sheep was washed after taken
off the sheep. After it was dry, it was hand-picked - every little
speck of dirt that could not be washed off was picked out. After
going through this process, it was bundled up and sent to the
roller mills, which worked it into rolls so that it could be spun
into yarn. The yarn was then knitted into mittens, socks, stockings,
and woven into cloth. Then it was made into bed blankets and clothing
for the family. Mother had two small spinning wheels and one large
one and a loom to weave the cloth.

To prepare the flax for the loom was more of a job. In order
to have the stems to grow tall and a good heavy coat of lint on
the outside of the stem, the soil in which the seed was planted
would have to be fertilized. When the flax had grown to maturity,
it had to be pulled by hand and put into little bundles about
the size of a man's arm with his coat on. Each bundle was tied
with a few of the flax stems. These bundles were put into shocks
as is oats or wheat and left stand until thoroughly dried. Then
with our Yankee Jumper and oxen, it was hauled and put in the
barn. Next, it was threshed. The barn floor was swept thoroughly,
and a pole about 15' long was placed on blocks or boxes so that
it would be about two feet off the barn floor. [We then took ]
the little bundles of flax in our hands and buffed over the pole
until all of the seed boles were knocked off, keeping the bundles
bound, as they were made when we pulled them.

After the threshing was completed, the flax was ready to be
put out to bleach, and the woody part in the stem to rot. After
the hay "was made" and the meadow cleared, we yoked
up our ox team and hitched them to the Yankee Jumper and hauled
it to spread on the stubble where the hay was cut off. [Reworked
the following sentence for clarity.] We had to put it in straight
rows, 10' apart, keeping the ends of the flax even. It was left
lying there until late in the fall, giving it as much time as
we could for the woody part of the stem to rot.

It was the raked into bundles about the size of a sheaf of
grain and hauled back to the barn where it was kept dry until
there was time to break it, which was done with what was called
a breaker, a machine set on legs about 30" high. The machine
was about 5' long. It had four pieces of wood the full length,
made out of lumber about one-half inch thick and four inches wide;
the upper edges were beveled off to about one-fourth of an inch
and placed about three inches apart. The upper part was made of
three pieces with the lower edges of them beveled as is the upper
edges of the four lower ones and set on hinge at one end so that
the upper pieces - or one might say "knives" - when
closed would fit in between the lower knives. The upper part on
the opposite end from the hinged end had a weight of about 10
pounds on it. The hand to take told of was located about one-third
of the way from the hinged end and was used to lift the part up
and push it down. A bunch of the flax that had been kept as straight
as it was when pulled - the size that one could nicely hold in
one hand - was taken (a right-handed man would hold it in his
left hand) and held across the lower knives. With the right hand,
he worked the upper part of the flax up and down until he had
the woody part of the stem all broken into fine pieces.

Before the flax was put through this process, it had to be
"kiln-dried." The kiln was a small enclosure all but
the roof, which was made of poles laid across it. The flax was
laid over those poles. A good fire was kept up in the kiln, which
was the only job that had [one] in the breaking part. Up to that
part of it, he was the whole works. The next thing to do was the
scutching, which was considered a boy's job.

We had what was called scutching boards and scutching knives.
The scutching board was 1" thick x 10" wide x about
3' long. This was nailed to a square block, so that the board
stood upright. The knife was made of hickory wood - 1" thick
x 3 ½ " wide x 2' long. The edges of this piece of
wood were beveled so that they were sharp [sounds like serrated
edges?] - one end was rounded off enough to make a nice handle
to hold on to when using it. A bunch of the flax that one could
hold nicely in one hand was placed over the upper end of the scutching
board; with the scutcing knife in the other hand, you would strike
on the part that was over the end of the board; this would "skutch"
all of the woody pieces of the stem that the breaker had broken.

When all the wood part was scutched out to about the middle
of the bunch one was holding, it turned around, and the end that
had been scutched was taken in the hand and the other end scuched
out, always keeping the fiber straight. When finished, it looked
something like a woman's "switch of hair."

After it was scutched, it was hackled, or one might say combed.
The hackle was made by putting long steel needles in a solid slab
of wood. The needles were four inches long, tapering from the
large end to a needle point. The bunches, which were always kept
separate, were pulled through the hackle, commencing at one end,
like a woman combs her hair when it has tats [matted hair?] in
it. To do this, the hackle was fastened down on a bench with the
needles pointing upward. This ended the boys' work with the flax.
The next thing to was to spin it into thread, when it was ready
for the loom, to weave it into cloth.

Mother kept a hired girl to do the housework. One - and sometimes
two - to do the spinning and weaving, as it took most of her time
to knit mittens, socks, hosiery , and work up woven cloth into
garments for the family. This work was all done by hand.

In late spring, we cut down large hemlock and white oak trees
and peeled off the bark, which was then cut in four-feet lengths
and corded up to dry. After it was thoroughly dried, it was ready
for market and sold to a tannery to tan hides. The white oak trees
were sawed in pieces the length of a barrel stave. This work was
done by the boys. We had a man who understood how to make staves
work it up. The staves were hauled to a cooper shop and worked
up into barrels, except the ends [the bottoms put on?]. The staves
were chamfered and grooved at the ends where the barrel heads
would fit in. After the staves were thoroughly set to their shape
as in a barrel, they were torn down and packed in a neat bunch
with whoop poles - little trees about an inch in diameter. [A
bunch of barrel staves was called a shook or chook (?), A. S.
explains.] We then delivered them to the cooper shop.

Another job we had to do was cut down trees that were from
six to eight inches in diameter and cut them into four-foot lengths
for props in the coal mine. Our mine was a drift in the side of
a hill. The vein was just four feet thick in depth, and lay between
two layers of solid rock. The props were used to hold up the upper
strata of rock when the coal was taken out. In my time, the coal
had been taken out so that where the mining was done, it was quite
a distance from the entrance. A railroad made of wooden rails,
on which was placed a four-wheel truck that held ten bushes of
coal, was pushed out by hand when it was loaded. It held 10 bushels
of coal. In a busy time, when the supply of coal that
was mined got low, one of us boys would have to go into the mine
and help the miner until the supply of mined coals was built up
good and plenty. The last two years we lived there [1863-64],
I was the one who helped the miner when the supply began to get
low. Our residence was between the mine and Ebensburg, the town
where we delivered the coal. The mine was one mile [from our home].
Ebensburg was seven miles east.

From the coal mine to the Main Highway [present Route 422?]
leading to Ebensburg where we delivered coal, it was two miles.
This road, or trail, was poorly worked and up quite a steep hill
that required two teams to haul a full load; then, one team hauled
from there to Ebensburg. In working it that way, a boy went with
the teamster to bring the extra team home. After doing that way
for some time, Father changed his plans and had the boys with
a yoke of oxen hitched to a two-wheeled cart haul coal from the
mine to the main highway and pile it on the ground for the teamster
to finish the full load - usually 40 bushels, 80 pounds to the
bushel. This was usually the boys' job, and in the fall before
the busy time for delivering coal comes, we had a good supply
on the hill, too - it was called "top load." In the
winter, we would use a sled [flat pallet-like skid] in place of
the art on Saturdays to keep up the supply.

Father usually kept three teams of heavy horses and a yoke
of oxen, which was used to work in, when more than the teams of
horses could do and to do most of the "trucking around"
on the farm that boys could do.

One spring when John [A.S.' brother] was twelve years old,
and I was ten, we had two steer calves that we had broken to ride
the winter before; they were as gentle as ponies. We often wished
that we had a yoke that was their size that we could break them
to work. John was something like Father - handy with tools. He
made our little wagons and sleds and many other things to play
with. He decided if he had a piece of wood the right size that
he could make a yoke. We looked around for a piece the right size,
but could not find one. An idea came into our heads to go out
in the timber and find a tree that would be about the right size.
After looking around awhile, we selected a linden tree. We took
turns chopping and soon had it down and cut out a piece the right
length for the yoke. The yoke completed, our fun began. As we
had them pretty well trained, it was not much of a job to get
the yoke on them, but it was hard to train them as was our old
ox team, but in a year's time we had them obeying our commands:
"Get up" - start them turning to the left; "Haw"
-- turn to the left; "Gee, gee, come-arouse" - turn
to the right; "Whoa" - stop. We did lots of "trucking
around" on the farm with them and used them to take joyrides.

Father planned every year to have the timber cleared off of
about five acres so that the land could be cultivated. The men
- when not engaged at other work - would cut down all the large
trees, trim them, and cut them into about 15' lengths. We boys
did the same to the smaller trees and underbrush. To dispose of
the logs - some which were too and three feet in diameter - we
had log-rolling bees. Fifteen to 20 men were invited and with
seven yoke of oxen helped haul the logs to the place where they
would pile them in a heap. The piling would be done with hand
spikes and skids; these piles would be six to eight feet high.
They were built so that there was a hollow space at one end where
fire wood and bark could be put in to start the fire to burn them,
when the wood became dry enough to burn. When this was completed,
we boys gathered the brush and other rubbish that would burn and
put it in large piles. The large boys gathered the large limbs,
and the small boys the small ones, large chips, and pieces of
bark. In doing this work we had many discussions as to what was
small or large, as we did when picking up the stones. After the
logs and brush were burned, the ground was ready to be put into
crop (planting could begin] - winter wheat or rye.

To prepare the ground for seeding, it was loosened up with
a horse hitched to a single-shovel plow so that enough of the
ground could be loosened up to cover the seed-grain that had been
sown. The ground around the stumps that could not be loosened
up with the plow was done so with a mattock. When the crop had
matured, it was cut with a cradle by the men. What was around
the stumps that could not be cut with the cradle, the boys gathered
with a sickle. They held the sickle in their right hands, they
would gather as much grain as they could in their left, then cut
it with the sickle. When cut it would be laid down on the ground;
that was repeated until there was enough to make a good-sized
sheaf; it was then bound. There were not many things done on the
farm but that the boys had a hand in doing. [What he means is
that the boys helped with nearly everything on the farm.]

The water for house-use and washing was carried from a big
spring of water about 20 rods from the house. It was carried by-hand
in pails by the boys - according to the size of the boy. We grumbled
continually about doing this and kept at Father to put down a
well close to the house, as our Uncle Sam Brallier had. Father
objected to doing that for the reason that wells had to be sunken
very deep, and the water from them was hard. The water in the
springs was as soft as rain-water. They did not have, at that
time, iron-piping, as they do now to convey water to where they
wanted it.

Father heard of a man who had a machine to bore holes through
the center of logs about 12' long, which could then be coupled
together to convey the water s it is done now with iron-piping.
He went and investigated the piping and thought it was all right,
came home and took the measurement of the distance from the spring
to where he wanted the water conveyed, then went back and ordered
enough logs bored to do the job. These connections - or thimbles,
as they were called - were made of iron about ¼ -inch thick
x 4" in diameter x 6" long; the ends of the thimbles
were made sharp.

To start this work, the first thimble was driven into the end
of a log, placed so that it was around the hole in the log; this
was done with a wood maul. After it was driven far enough so that
it would hold, another log was placed up against the thimble,
which had been stared, then driven by a battering ram until the
ends of the logs came together. That was repeated until the piping
came to the distance he wanted - from the kitchen door, where
it emptied into a tank that had an outlet to carry the water to
the barn. There it emptied into a tank for the stock. These logs
- or piping - was laid in ditches three feet dep. This water was
of a temperature that never froze in winter and was nice and cool
in the summer.

In the winter of 1864-5, an old neighbor of Father's who had
come West [A.S. wrote this from the West] returned for a visit
[to Blacklick Township] and to advertise the Western prairies.
[It is possible that this could have been Levi Shaffer, son of
Andrew and Sarah Cain Shaffer; he'd gone to Iowa in the 1850s]
He secured the use of our schoolhouse and advertised that he would
give a lecture, which he did. He had samples of many of the products
raised, told the nature of the soil - no stones - and that a furrow
could be drawn a mile without a break in it. We boys went to the
lecture with father and were very interested in it. Father did
not say much in our presence about it, but I imagine he and Mother
had talked the matter over carefully, as that summer (1865) after
he had harvested his little crop [seems to be what they called
the vegetable garden], he packed his grip, took a train for Cedar
Rapids, Iowa. He spent about ten weeks looking around the counties
of Linn, Benton, Buchanan, and Black Hawk. He came home very much
impressed with the West and decided to dispose of his holdings
and move West. The following winter [seems to have been actually
that fall] he sold his farm, reserving the use of it the following
year, so that he would have time to close up his business there.
[Besides the coal, he had a lumber business.] Shortly after he
sold the farm, he was taken sick and died (October 1, 1865), leaving
Mother a widow with ten children - the oldest not "of age"
and the youngest two weeks old.

After Father's death, Mother's parents, brothers, and sisters
all wanted her to buy back the farm, but we four oldest objected
and said if she did not carry out Father's plans, when we became
"of age" that we would go West; we were not going to
farm where we had to pick up and haul the stones off of the land
every year.

We farmed the land (the last year) as Father had planned, and
the following winter (1866) Mother's aunt-- who lived in Linn
County, Iowa - came back for a visit and was at our home several
times. She thought we ought to carry out Father's plans, but her
folks all opposed it. We boys stuck to it that we would go West
if she stayed there. This was a trying time for Mother. It was
the height of her ambition to keep the family with her, and it
was hard for her to go against her folks wishes, but she decided
while her aunt was there to have a sale and move West, as Father
had planned. Sam, the oldest of the boys, went with Mother's aunt
when she returned home, and with the aid of an uncle, he rented
a farm, bought teams, and machinery to operate the farm.

Mother immediately made sale and sold off everything but bedding,
dishes, and some keepsakes. Most of the things were not sold were
brought as baggage by the family. When we arrived at Cedar Rapids,
we were taken to Mother's aunt and uncle's home.

(The above was written by Alexander Smith (A.S.) Gillin in
the early 1930's and transcribed and typed by his daughter Edith
Gillin Bruner, with whom he spent the last few years of his life,
after being widowed. Some minor corrections, grammatical rearrangement,
and explanation in brackets [] was performed by Wanda Barrett,
who so graciously provided this rare glimpse of life in early
Blacklick Township)